Feathers for Flowers – Kosei Komatsu at TDW

Among the many good exhibits at this year’s Tokyo Design Week I found these pieces by famous feather/flower designer Kosei Komatsu (小松宏誠). He has a terrific web site here. Instead of using flowers for his arrangements he relies on feathers, and in this case, part of a bird itself to create these stunning pieces. The bird makes it feel almost gothic. The theme of his work and many other artists was Ito Jakuchu, a singularly important 18th century painter. If you are into traditional Japanese art you are bound to have seen some of his many famous paintings. The connection between the birds and animal scrolls of Ito and the present day pieces by Komatsu are very obvious.